A Community of Fidelity
For Meditation (Corey Widmer)
We are in the section of the Sermon on the Mount in which Jesus is demonstrating his relationship to the Old Testament. He said in 5:17-20 that he came to fulfill the Law and the Prophets, and to point to a greater and deeper righteousness. Now, he is teaching through a series of six “case studies,” showing in each case how he has come to cast a vision of love and “right relationships” that embodies his upside-down Kingdom.
In this third case study, Jesus turns to the contentious issue of divorce. In Jesus’ day and time, there was quite a lax attitude about divorce, and even the Rabbinic teachers interpreted the Old Testament in such a way as to allow men to divorce their wives for nearly any reason. Jesus reacts strongly against this, calling people back to God’s original vision of marriage as a sacred, inviolable covenant between a man and a woman as given by God in creation (see his expanded teaching on this in Matthew 19:1-12). Jesus shows his contemporaries that in their debates about the justifications for divorce they have lost the focus on God’s good vision of marriage. Jesus is so harsh about divorce because his vision of marriage is so very high.
We have to be very careful when we look at passages like this, because divorce is such a complex and sensitive matter for many. But it’s clear from this passage that in the mind of Jesus, marriage is a sacred and holy thing that is meant to be permanent. While he seems to acknowledge that divorce is sometimes necessary, and the rest of the New Testament expands on this, he calls his people to a vision of marriage that reflects God’s own covenant love for his people.
As you prepare for worship this week, read our passage alongside Matthew 19:1-12. Consider the following:
In every situation we’ve looked at, Jesus stands on the side of the weaker person who has little agency or rights. How is Jesus doing that in this case?
Behind Jesus’ harsh words about divorce is a high vision of marriage. Where does Jesus get his ideas about marriage from? How would you describe it?
As you think about your own marriage or other marriages, what makes the promises of marriage so difficult to uphold?
Matthew 5:31–32
31 “It has been said, ‘Anyone who divorces his wife must give her a certificate of divorce.’ 32 But I tell you that anyone who divorces his wife, except for sexual immorality, makes her the victim of adultery, and anyone who marries a divorced woman commits adultery.